WASHINGTON 

The top law enforcement official for the US capital city on Friday sued the Trump administration, accusing it of staging an "unlawful" federal takeover of Washington, DC’s police force in violation of the DC home rule legislation.

"By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD (Metropolitan Police Department), the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law," Brian Schwalb, the Washington, DC attorney general, wrote on US social media company X. "This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it."

In a 33-page complaint, Schwalb said President Donald Trump and Pamela Bondi, the US attorney general, had engaged in a "brazen usurpation" of local authority by installing Drug Enforcement Administration chief Terrance Cole as “emergency police commissioner” with "all the powers and duties" of the Metropolitan Police Department chief.

The filing says Section 740 of the 1973 Home Rule Act permits the president only to request MPD "services" for “federal purposes” during narrowly defined emergencies – authority "no President has ever attempted to exercise" in 52 years.

The lawsuit says Trump instead placed the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control for broad local law enforcement, despite crime having fallen 26% since 2024.

The White House has dismissed the statistics as “fake.”

On Monday, Trump took control of the DC police and deployed 800 National Guard members to Washington, DC, using Section 740 of the 1973 Home Rule Act as a legal pretext for federalizing the district's police. The article allows a president to declare an emergency in the capital and assume control of the department for up to 30 days.

Trump said he may declare a national emergency to extend his hold over DC police even further, but also called on Congress to pass legislation to do so.

"If it's a national emergency, we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly," he said.

"We're going to need a crime bill that we're going to be putting in, and it's going to pertain initially to DC We're going to use it as a very positive example, and we're going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can't have 30 days," he added.